Raw Vintage Questions

[mferronibc]

So I’ve been sort of getting back into collecting this past year. Full honesty, started with some higher grade PSA 7-8 cards, nothing over a few hundred bucks- mainly late issue HOFers or Leaders cards. After spending a lot of time on here reading about the current state of professional grading and thinking more about what it is that really excites me about collecting I am more and more testing the waters with raw cards. I find this much more rewarding so far trying to sift through cards I actually want that look to be reasonable bargains based on their condition than simply a “set price” based on a PSA number and previous auction prices. The questions I have are:

1) Is it a fair assumption that when you see a nice looking card from these big volume raw sellers, they have already determined the card is not worth the additional $20 (or $8) to have it graded and possibly sell it for more. I.e. most of these cards even if they look great would probably grade out like sub-4 even if the pics make them look better?

2) Finding the variability with photos kinda frustrating. As someone advised me before, so you just have to be committed to the fact that some of these purchases will have to be returned if the card looks much worse when you get it in hand? Would you then be very suspicious of sellers who state a no return policy?